ANATOMY 



151 



tMckness and finally ends in a papillose stigma which in most cases shows subdivision 

 into three more or less well-marked lobes. Harvey's figures of the female flowers of 

 M. Folemanni do not show any prominent stigma at all. Usually three delicate 

 vascular bundles pass up the style ending in a brush-like tuft of reticulate tracheids in 

 each of the stigmatic lobes (fig. 19). The style is composed of oblong parenchyma 

 full of " mystrin," but I have been unable to see any indication of the three grooves 

 mentioned by Griffith — though it is possible that these may be visible in the fresh 

 condition. On tracing the course of the bundles down the style it is fecund that they 

 anastomose from time to time, sometimes splitting into four or even five bundles and 

 then reuniting, finally fusing into two larger bundles in the constricted region just 



inside the perianth. At the point of orisrin of the perianth these strands give off two or 

 sometimes three chains of very delicate spiral tracheids, which enter the perianth, while 

 the main strands break up into several fine brnnches which pass down through the 

 inner layer of the ovarial wall, finally uniting again into one larger bundle in the 

 conical base of the ovary, where, after passing through the torus, it unites with 

 the vascular system of the axis of inflorescence. 



The Eruit. 



The fruit remains enclosed within the persistent and accrescent bracts, its base 

 surrounded by the almost colourless swollen disc (" torus " of Harvey). The perianth 

 and style are deciduous, leaving a ragged scar at the apex of the fruit. The ripe fruit 

 is orange-shaped and about 2 mm. in diameter, and of a deep brown-black colour. It 

 tapers rapidly to its point of attachment in the swollen receptacle. In form it mucli 

 more closely resembles the fruit of M. Thomii as figured by Harvey than it does the 

 oblong elliptical fruit of M. JPolemanni. The pericarp (fig. 20) consists externally of a 

 double layer of flattened cells whose cavities are completely filled with " mystrin," thus 

 accounting for the intense brown-black colour of the fruit as seen with the naked eye. 

 These layers are followed internally by two layers of very thick-walled sclerotic cells, 

 deeply pitted and partly filled wdth " mystrin." Then follows a layer of polygonal or 

 oblong ceUs, rather loosely arranged, merging into a layer of more elongated cells, 

 among which run the delicate vascular strands already referred to, ^Vll of these cells 

 are filled with " mystrin." The pericarp encloses a mass of large polygonal cells whose 

 outermost layer is in the form of smaller and more flattened plates. These cells possess 

 large nuclei and finely reticulate and vacuolated protoplasmic contents which take on 

 a deep stain with the usual anilin dyes. This tissue, obviously endosperm, has no 



cc 



mystrin" in its ceUs, and for that reason is sharply marked off from the pericarp 

 Engler (Pflanzenfamilien, III. I. 252) describes the fruit as " nussartig, mit fleischigem 

 Epicarp, diinn krustigem Mesocarp und diinnwandigem Endocarp." In no case have 

 I seen any evidence of " fleshiness *' in the external layers of the fruit- wall. Indeed, 

 sectionising the fruit is a matter of some difficulty owing to the brittleness of the 

 external wall. As Engler makes no mention of the fleshy disc subtending the fruit, 



SECOND SERIES. —BOTANY, VOL. VIII. 



2 



